


Domesticus

by femme4jack, fractalserpentine



Series: Domesticus [1]
Category: Transformers, Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alien Abduction, Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Bestiality, Castration, Dystopia, Electricity, Hand Jobs, M/M, Massage, Multi, Non Consensual, Nudity, Oral Sex, Plug and Play, Powerlessness, Rape, Robot Sex, Size Difference, Size Kink, Slavery, Threesome - M/M/M, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2012-09-22
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:43:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme4jack/pseuds/femme4jack, https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractalserpentine/pseuds/fractalserpentine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Homo sapiens domesticus<br/>Humans (Homo sapiens domesticus) are short-lived primates of the family Hominidae, and the only existant species of the genus Homo. They originated in Africa, and spread to other continents of planet Earth within a megavorn.  While fractious and warlike in their wild state, they are easily trained to a useful function.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Domesticus

**Author's Note:**

> **Content: Explicit xeno rape/non-con including anal penetration of human using a hardline cable, slavery, size kink, refs. past castration, suggests bestiality depending on POV of mech involved**
> 
> AU in which the Great War never took place. Under the benevolent rule of the Prime and the fierce strength of the Protector, the Cybertronian empire has grown to encompass a myriad of galaxies, systems, and worlds.

Homo sapiens domesticus  
Humans (Homo sapiens domesticus) are short-lived primates of the family Hominidae, and the only existent species of the genus Homo. They originated in Africa, and spread to other continents of planet Earth within a megavorn. While fractious and warlike in their wild state, they are easily trained to a useful function.

  
  


\--

“Let me show you,” Mirage whispered in the scientist’s audial, lacing his finely-sculpted digits between Perceptor’s broader ones, “our organics.”

Four cubes of Tower Iacon’s finest highgrade did nothing to blunt Perceptor’s curiosity. And while he was under no illusions as to the reason for his presence here -- one simply did not refuse the Iacon clade -- in truth, the great Tower’s efforts to entangle him were far from unwelcome. All of this, the invitation, the expensive meal, even the attentions of this towerling, all of it was due to the success of Perceptor’s latest discoveries. By the end of this cycle, Tower Iacon would no doubt offer to fund Perceptor’s research for a span of time, and perhaps even expand his laboratory. In return, of course, the Tower would demand exclusive license and control over the resulting discoveries until the contract ended.

It was an elaborate dance of agreements and leverage, and Perceptor knew it well. It was simply part of making one’s way as a scientist, at least, above a certain level. The Science Academe, for all its resources, was better-suited to assisting younger scientists, or those working in less equipment-intensive fields. It did not have the ability to provide an astrophysicist of Perceptor’s calibur with the kinds of unconventional tools he required. For the greatest scientists on Cybertron, servitude to a Tower was the best and most certain means to keep one’s laboratory growing, to stay on the cutting edge. The best patrons, those Towers that were the most generous to their scientists, and interfered the least with the minutae of that research, were highly sought after. Of those patrons, Perceptor was keenly aware, Tower Iacon was considered one of the best.

The halls of Tower Iacon echoed as Mirage led him away from the warmth of the banquet hall, and into the shadowed residential wing. Tower Iacon had once been merely beautiful; now it was one of the foremost wonders of the known universe. Mecha came from across the empire to marvel at Tower’s architectural features -- vast arches that framed galaxies or glittered in the the light of the various suns their wandering planet orbited, moved there by the Prime; spiraling whorls of stone and steel; elaborate inlays; walkways like vast sweeping wings. The entire structure bespoke air, and elegance... and power.

At this joor, few mecha were about: a handful of guards as still as sculptures, a drone or two, a lower-ranked Iacon towerling pausing to enjoy a wall of lenticular crystal blossoms. A sculpted doorway slid open for Mirage, revealing luxuriously appointed quarters, cast in a warm glow. Actual organic fibers padded the seating within, and datapads lined the walls, set atop shelving made of an increasingly popular lignin composite. The ‘wood’ was fairly strong and lightweight and quite beautiful; it was also imported at great expense. One whole wall panel was made of the stuff, finely carved to match one of the sacred texts of Primus, glyphs and images depicting first contact with alien races. Slowly-moving light fixtures played over stasis-locked displays of rare objects -- the proudly spread feathers of an argonite raptor, various photosynthetic units from primitive organic species rooted in soil from their own planets, and several preserved aquatic creatures. But for all the decadence, it did not seem that any mech lived here. Everything was spotlessly clean, rarely used. Smiling with anticipation, Mirage guided the scientist inside.

Past a curved portico to the right, a huge berth -- sized for three or four mecha -- dominated the space. The top was padded with a small fortune in medical-grade protometal, rather than the more typical mesh and vents. Aside from a berthformer, this was probably the most luxurious means of recharge a mech could buy.

But as lavish as the berth was, the small tank set into the wall above interested Perceptor far more. The cage was glass-fronted, and contained a suspended cube of liquid water with a tiny nozzle attached, a scattering of small objects and bits of metalmesh... and three of the new organics.

Perceptor had heard of them, of course. Several of the most exclusive bodyshops in Iacon kept a contingent -- it was said that no mere drone or buffing-tool could reach into finest gaps between plating the way these creatures could. A coat of one of the newly-discovered waxes such as ‘carnauba’, applied by organics imported from the same planet, was a luxury outside the means of most Cybertronians. To have a small crew of them here, and apparently for private use alone --!

The creatures were somewhat larger than a hatchling, though far longer and more slender in all proportions. They were around a mechanometer tall, and walked on two pedes like a standard-frame mech. A few other features were superficially similar, as well -- a solitary pair of optics, a primitive buccal cavity, hands split into several manipulating digits. But rather than proper plating, the creatures were entirely covered in a thin sheet of tailored keratin, all one color. Each wore a cap of fur across the helm, and a small breathing mask, cupped over the olfactory sensor but leaving the mouthparts free. At the juncture of their legs, they were equipped with a small lumpish probe or digit. And eerily, they had almost no magnetic field at all, leaving them strangely blank, like tiny drones.

“Fascinating,” Perceptor breathed, approaching the tank. Two of the little creatures edged towards the rear, the other pressed its small hands to the glass, staring back with moist optics. Its buccal cavity moved, producing a string of deep sounds, and it tapped on the glass with its tiny fist. “Humans, correct? I’d heard they were being imported now. Have they sociological attachments? A primitive variety of language, perhaps? What was their determined degree of intelligence on the Torch-Redshift scale? Have you kept a behavioral recor--”

"--in due time," Mirage trilled, his melodic glyphs laced with good humor. "You will be granted as much access for observation and experimentation as you desire."

Mirage reached into the tank from above, passing easily through the field keyed to his own resonance. He paused, apparently considering which of the creatures to remove, and opted for one of those in the back. It flinched slightly, emitting several interesting noises, but made no move to escape as the Mirage's long fingers wrapped its torso. Perceptor filed away the noises for later analysis. The organic flinched again as Mirage lifted it through the field, as though expecting pain, but apparently was able to pass through without harm in Mirage's hand.

The towerling gestured with his free hand. “Please, enjoy the berth. The organic shall attend to you,” he invited, depositing the little creature atop the protometal.

Cycling up his microscopic optical lenses, Perceptor did as he was bid, levering himself down to the center of the huge berth mainly by feel. The little creature was *fascinating*, its outer covering evidently a self-generated agglutination of more organic matter, and not an industrially-produced covering. How had it made such a smooth keratin coat? Perhaps by hunting smaller creatures, and attaching pieces of them to itself? And what design did the cap of fur serve -- insulation, or a warning or territorial signal of sorts? This one had brown fur, but the others had more yellow toned caps, one lighter than the other. Perhaps he’d be allowed to touch it?

Clearly, however, Mirage was determined that it should perform whatever waxing or detailing service for which it had been trained, first. Perceptor watched avidly as Mirage knelt down on the berthtop, withdrew a tiny cube and a pile of odd, microfiber mesh-like squares from his subspace, and set all the objects beside Perceptor’s arm. The creature looked across at the implements with dull optics. It made no further move, however, and Perceptor’s brow ridges creased. Pushing himself up on one elbow, he turned to ask a question of the towerling --

\-- and shivered instead, as Mirage's attention and those long, agile fingers turned to him. The slighter mech’s digits expertly glided down Perceptor's arm to his tertiary interface, circling and caressing the small node on his wrist. Perceptor's connector extended, the glowing rods slotting eagerly forth and folding together into a standard jack. Mirage gave a pleasant hum, further unspooling the cable, his sculpted fingers ghosting over the tip and drawing a rising charge. The hardline cable was a small device, the plug at the tip not even so long or thick as a mech’s finger. But, dense with protometal, it was both marvelously sensitive and capable of several modes of transformation, in order to make a tight, high-throughput connection with another mech’s socket.

In this configuration, Perceptor’s hardline was quite standard, lacking the barbs or prongs that some mecha favored. The surface was slick, smooth save for the subtle ridges of lightbars, a common and visually arousing charge indicator. They also made it easier to interface in a dark environment, a throwback to a time when Cybertron had circled no sun, and power had sometimes been scarce. That, of course, was a very long time ago... but Perceptor had seen little need to change his hardline style in the interim.

Perceptor relaxed into the berth's yielding surface, the digits of his nine-fingered hand splaying and twitching as jolts of pleasure surged through his wrist and arm, summoned by the towerling's light, knowing touch. His secondary optics were intent upon the organic while his primaries took in Mirage's superbly crafted, customized frame. Perceptor knew the rules and boundaries of towers protocol, however. As much as he might wish to map Mirage's lines with his own curious digits, he would not touch until given leave.

Mirage smirked, and then reached over to scoot the organic closer to Perceptor's relaxed arm strut. Even the gentle push made the tiny thing stumble as it crossed a surface that must have seemed vast compared to itself.

"Just lay back... and enjoy," Mirage urged him before Perceptor could raise any of the myriad of questions he had. Mirage gave Perceptor's glowing hardline jack a final caress, and then held it it out to the trembling creature who now stood near the tips Perceptor's fingers.

Tiny digits wrapped around the girth of his jack, normally such a small component, but suddenly seeming large in the organic's hands. The creature’s fingers were jointed like a mech’s, but the struts were on the inside, and there was no hard covering over them -- only a padded softness, slightly tacky with oils, warm as plating spread in the sun. Perceptor watched, curious, as creature wrapped both hands around the jack, cradling it. Mirage let go of the rest of the cable, and the creature again staggered slightly under the solid weight before folding itself down on its kneejoints. Mirage nudged the miniature cube closer, and the organic reached for it, and dipped fingers into the thin wax.

A shiver ran through Perceptor's entire frame as those tiny, delicate hands began massaging the wax into this most exquisitely sensitive portion of his frame. It was... not a place he was accustomed to being detailed, not that he often spared time or thought for such luxuries. The human's finger digits were wonderfully soft, the circular movements they made tantalizing, a promise of more. The little organic began to press and rub harder, the tensors in its fingers undergirded by calcified internal struts. Perceptor's jack flared brighter as charge raced up his hardline in response. Tickling in places, firm in others, the human’s touch reached spots that received no contact at all in the normal course of interfacing. Around the lightbars, at the base near the cable join, the near-invisible seams where the individual rods had folded together....

"O...oh," Perceptor gasped, venting hard at the sudden spike of heat deep in his frame. His vocalizer stuttered as he attempted to string a logical thread together. “Was-- was it provided a training module? Or is t-this skill hardwir-- ah!” Perceptor’s optics spiraled to maximum as the human put its mouthparts to his datajack.

The human had a glossa -- but it was not a pricking, wire-dense appendage used for drawing up energon by capillary forces, like a mech’s. Instead it was damp with water and nitrogen chemicals, softer and hotter even than the hands that continued to wax and stroke the remainder of his jack. The input was beyond exquisite as the small creature worked, sweeping its glossa over the upper half of the datajack, delving into each tiny, sensor-dense surface feature. The places that wetness passed tingled, *ached*, as the organic’s mouth left them, and the water evaporated into the thin atmosphere.

When the little organic opened its mouth wide, and took the head of his jack inside, Perceptor had to cut power to his tensors, just to keep from jerking. Calcified dentae scraped and clicked against the protometal surface, raising delicious shudders of sensation. Small noises came from the human's throat as it drew Perceptor's jack to the very back of its buccal cavity, encompassing the tip with soft, wet heat. The organic’s mouthparts were stretched as wide as they could, more watery liquid dripping from the corner of its wide-parted lips, padded glossa lapping at the enveloped tip of the jack. The organic momentarily seemed distressed, struggling, but then it shifted its angle a little and drew his jack even deeper -- *into* its primitive intake tube.

It should have been repulsive, but Perceptor found himself delighted to the core of his explorer coding. The little thing continued pumping its hands up and down the remainder of his jack, tiny optics shuttered, glossa sweeping along and probing between the lightbars. The tensors at the top of the human's intake tube fluttered and squeezed. Apparently the creature could only fit the first quarter of the jack, or even less, down its intake. The strips of light still outside the organic’s mouthparts glowed brilliantly, radiating light.

Mirage made a noise, somewhat similar to one the human had made when being removed from the tank, and the creature stopped, sliding its intake port off of the jack. It continued to massage the length with its hands in swirling, circular motions, and suckled at one place at a time along the upper half. And oh, he’d not realized -- that keratin surface was far more mobile than faceplates, could press and mold tight enough to apply actual suction. Who knew that minor pressure variations could - could -- oh, Primus. Almost without understanding how, the scientist felt his armor flare, his lasercore working hard. “M-mirage, I --”

Mirage made the noise again, and the creature stopped, reached for more of the wax, coating the length of Perceptor's jack liberally with handfuls of the silky-smooth organic substance. Cradled in that grip, Perceptor’s datajack was roughly the size and length of the organic’s forearm. All the while, the human watched the researcher, optics blinking but intent as it placed the rim of its mouth on the tip, applying more soft suction, scraping and tapping with its small dentae. Each tiny, clicking nip, each wet and suckling sound, twisted something tighter inside Perceptor.

And then, applying its mouth securely over the tip again, fingers scooping more of the liquid wax over his full length, the human began to *hum.*

"Ah... oh... " Perceptor tried to form a coherent observation, but the only one he could possibly make was that he desperately, desperately did not wish the sensations to stop.

“Oh indeed,” murmured Mirage, at last reaching to take the dataplug from the little organic. The creature looked up, its optics wide, tiny fingers reaching as if it wanted the plug returned. “You should hear them sing,” he said, and with the palm of his hand, pushed the little beast down onto its underchassis.

The organic stirred its limbs, seeming to struggle feebly against the towerling’s strength -- its buccal cavity worked, and more of those low-pitched, harmonic sounds emerged. Mirage’s hand was as long as the creature’s entire torso, and though the organic’s strangely slender pedes kicked, they didn’t have the strength to resist the spreading fingers. Tiny, thread-like digits clawed downward, scarcely denting the soft berth surface.

Perceptor watched curiously, all too aware of the towerling’s other fingers, stroking his connector lightly, spreading that thick coat of slick wax. If Mirage meant to cable with him -- a maddeningly pleasurable thought, for clademecha often obtained the newest in interface software -- that wax would make for an absolute mess. He could not imagine anyone, let alone a fastidious towerling, wanting to get so much of the stuff in his ports. And then Perceptor’s vents flared, his fuel pumps skipped a stroke... as Mirage pressed the tip of the scientist’s cable to the cleft of the tiny organic’s aft.

“Astonishing...” Perceptor breathed, watching the little beast go still. Perhaps he should have balked. As they lacked a spark, even the most intelligent of organics could not be considered fully sentient. Many mecha would consider interfacing with one a highly degrading act. And yet, the thought of exploring something new, and so intimately...

Was it really any different than the common and accepted use of drones, coded to provide pleasure and release? And clearly, this towerling was not to be counted among those mecha who thought the use of organics taboo. Indeed, Perceptor had to wonder if such use of organics was perhaps a more common pastime than he knew. Those exclusive bodyshops, after all, went to such particular trouble to obtain this specific variety of organic... and who knew what went on behind closed hatches? Perceptor’s curiosity was thoroughly piqued. “Was it engineered to possess an appropriate port, or is this a natural feature of the species? By what code is the opening sequence initiated?”

Mirage’s faceplates spread in a smile. Ah, the explorer-sparked -- they so rarely grew tiresome, Primus bless their pointy little processors. “There is no sequence. The only requirement... is pressure,” he said, and with delicate skill, applied some.

Perceptor sucked in a harsh vent. It seemed for a moment as if there was no port at all -- nothing spiraled open for him. And yet the organic membranes flexed reluctantly for him, and then parted, stretching around him. The creature cried out, a sharp sustained sound, and then the tip of his plug was sliding *into* it, into magnificent, encompassing heat -- into a tightness that should not have been possible. Even a completely untouched, unworn port did not... cling like this, did not mold itself to every part of him, giving with deliciously slow resistance, far tighter and hotter than even the organic’s intake. And -- oh. And deeper.

The organic’s legs spasmed, and Mirage shifted his grip a little, to hold it down more firmly. “Good?” he asked, a slow smile twisting his mouthparts, and pushed in a little more.

“Y-yes!” Perceptor gasped, vents shuddering. He could feel each lightbar and subtle engraving on the plug pass through the organic’s tightest part, a ring of tension, to enter into the encompassing bliss. “H-how does it -- why does -- h-ah!” his vocalizer glitched in a squeal as Mirage twisted, pushed in a little more, until fully half of him was impaled. Progress was harder now, slower, and he could feel the little organic’s tensors pushing against him, rippling and straining. The organic renewed its sharp cries as each lightbar, one by one, slipped inside.

“It’s an excretion port, evidently,” said Mirage, purring a laugh at the expression that washed the scientist’s field. “Inactive. The contact crews developed an alternate fuel.” The towerling relaxed pressure for a moment, letting the organic’s shaking flexors work against the plug, as if they could push it out -- a captivating fluttering sensation, deeply pleasurable -- and then he steadily forced the rest of the datajack home in a long, smooth thrust. That tight ring clamped down around the plug’s cable, the bulk of the entire jack fully housed, impaled in clenching softness and heat. Mirage let the creature go, but it seemed unable to move, limbs shaking. Trembling, the organic tried to draw its kneejoints up under it, but collapsed onto its underchassis, crying out once more.

It was difficult to even think around such pleasure -- the human’s every twitch or shift unleashed a new cascade of sensation across the protometal. “It -- ah!... appears d-distressed,” Perceptor observed, fighting the urge to twist, himself. Organics were not his area of expertise, but the thing’s body language was not entirely dissimilar from a mech’s. As the organic lacked any real magnetic field, however, it was difficult to draw conclusive observations. And it was difficult, too, to form a hypothesis when so wonderfully, perfectly close to overloading....

“Not so,” Mirage purred, curling himself against Perceptor’s back, long, clever fingers stroking along the scientist’s interface cable housing, circling the spiraled leaves of the closed port. With a groan, Perceptor unshuttered the little opening, heard the quiet whirr as Mirage unspooled his own hardline cable. “If you leave two or more of them together, they perform a very similar ritual -- sometimes four or five times a cycle.”

“Regardless, perhaps --” Perceptor’s vocalization cut off again in a sharp feedback squeal as Mirage slipped his own datajack into the scientist’s receptor. The connector clicked neatly into place, the hardline opening wide between them.

“Try emitting... this pulse, quarter-phase,” murmured the towerling, scraping dentae just lightly over one of Perceptor’s audial ridges. He pushed a datapacket across, in demonstration. Translated via neuralnet into physical sensation, the packet was a pleasing, vibrating hum that resonated up the struts, like a thoroughly luxurious stretch in a cool atmosphere. Coupled with the direct stimulation of the organic’s clenching tensors, the effect was delightful.

Theoretically, however, such a pulse would do little applied to an organic like this one. The creature simply did not contain sufficient magnetic elements. Even if it did, would its simple nervous system prove capable of processing such data? But Perceptor was hardly a mech who ran numbers and eschewed experimentation! Frowning in focus, he carefully echoed the same pulse across his hardline to the organic.

The human stiffened sharply, buccal unit gaping. It writhed, chassis jerking as a flood of electromagnetism washed over its keratin coat, a cascade of glittering color. Squirming, the creature reached back, found the hardline cord with trembling fingers and stroked, as if to press the plug deeper into itself. The rippling pressure alone was sweet, a sensation almost uncategorizable, but that crackling electromagnetic feedback -- it was like a thousand threads of protometal touching, like the first mouthful of a highgrade so refined it sparkled with suspended gasses.

And yet somehow *more*, as intense as a hack and yet nothing at all like pain, more addictive than any viral patch, consuming.... The crest of the pulse washed over the little organic, echoed back through Perceptor, a wave that swept even Mirage. It was -- so *novel*, something completely new in all Perceptor’s long experience, as intensely shocking as the first time he had ever interfaced. Capacitors overflowing with charge, he wanted -- needed -- more...

...Mirage caught at Perceptor’s arm before he could reach out to clasp the little organic closer. “Short pulses,” he purred, his own datapackets rocking through Perceptor’s frame, grounding counterpoint to the exquisite bliss. “And if you squeeze the organic....”

Oh. Oh. Of course. How inconsiderate -- organics were fragile by nature. And once broken, they were uniformly difficult to repair. One tensor at a time, Perceptor forced himself to relax, exchanging soothing, pleasurable pulses over Mirage’s hardline, the towerling’s fingers ghosting over his seams and wiring. But he watched the human.

It lay still for a time, electromagnetic field fading rapidly back to its unimpressive state. It ventilated heavily. It could apparently do so by two means -- through either the buccal or olfactory vents -- but the atmospheric scrubber covered only the olfactory one. When it gasped through its mouth, the creature often jolted its way through a strange little spasm, resulting in a quiet bark of noise. Each of those little jerking movements made the human’s chassis tighten and flex around Perceptor’s hardline, raising new shivering curls of sensation. What would happen, Perceptor wondered idly, if a mech were to carry the organic about with him, and remain connected for... cycles? Or orn? He’d have to assemble a small cage or holder, of sorts....

Gradually, the organic pushed itself over onto its side, the bright-glowing length of Perceptor’s cable tangled between its legs. Perceptor cycled his optics. The creature’s small probe was more prominent, though Perceptor was uncertain if that was a worrisome sign. But -- “Mirage...” he started, hesitantly.

“Hn?” The towerline murmured, dentae scraping over the cables of Perceptor’s throat in a way that very nearly brought the larger mech to writhing.

“I do believe... I have caused your organic to leak. Is the damage -- can it be repaired?” Perceptor asked.

Mirage paused, glanced over. Perceptor could feel the towerling’s faceplates spread in a smirk, against the back of his neck. “No need for concern, my dear researcher. It is a common response. The other organics will clean the berth -- and you -- when we are finished.”

Intensely curious, Perceptor reached out, drawing the tip of one finger through the thin, white fluid. Mainly water, he discovered, assay nanites clipping the chemical combinations apart for analysis. A fairly high concentration of magnesium. And... tiny rotary tails, chemically driven, each attached to a separate lipid membrane. Organic nanites, of some variety? “Incredible. Were you aware that this variety of organic expels --”

Mirage vented a sigh. “Later. You may conduct an examination later, for now...” he pressed another pleasurable databurst across the hardline, in demonstration. “...there are other pulse combinations you really must sample.”

Perceptor's armor flared at the slightly more complex pattern. He glanced back at Mirage. "May I touch it? I will be exceedingly careful."

Mirage purred an affirmative, transmitting a quick databurst of the humans' pressure limitations. Apparently some amount of dermal injury and internal leakage could self-repair, though a mech still had to be quite cautious with this species. Perceptor reached out with a single digit, to stroke the soft fur cap on the human's helm. The tiny optics briefly met his own, and the creature issued a small whimper that turned into a high pitched, melodic cry as Perceptor initiated the next pulse combination. Glittering electromagnetism washed over the human’s surface, a vivid and chaotic display. The organic bucked and writhed in a mesmerizingly alien fashion, incredibly flexible. One of the creature’s hands clung to the data cable, the other stroked the hardened appendage between its legs.

Every stroke was accompanied by a deep internal squeeze, every twist brought a new rippling wave of tightness to bear across his penetrating hardline. And the datapulse Perceptor issued was returned twofold, warped by strange chemistries, igniting a heat that went straight to his core.

Carefully, carefully, Perceptor curled his digits around the human, feeling the soft give of its keratin coat, the pleasant weight of the little creature. Its optics went wide, and it produced more noises, reaching up to press against Perceptor’s caging talons -- before another pulse rocked it, making it arch and buck like a live wire. The sparkling electromagnetic cascade made Perceptor’s hands tingle as he cupped the small thing into his palms.

Curiosity and white-hot pleasure combined in the very best kind of way. Perceptor brought the organic closer to his optics, testing variations of the data pulses, watching how the little creature jerked and spasmed. *This* pattern made the human stroke fiercely at its small, hardened appendage, another frequency made it shake and clench vice-tight around the impaled hardline. A third made the pale fluid seep from its appendage, even when the human was not stroking it.

Perceptor was hard-pressed to properly log the results of his experimentation. Every jerk and cry and new crackle of electromagnetism washed new bliss through his systems, his own vocalizer breaking in crackling static, his body shedding charge through Mirage’s frame every time the towerling nipped at his throat cables or stroked his plating. Perceptor initiated another pulse, causing the organic to cry out, once again leaking fluid in spasmodic bursts from the appendage between its legs. The feedback was complex and pleasurable beyond computations.

Before the bliss could swamp him entirely, Perceptor uploaded the organic’s pressure and charge limitations into the hardware of his hands, ensuring that his subsystems would neither crush not electrocute the creature. The precaution proved wise -- for the next datapulse blasted Perceptor’s vision to white, made his dentae clench and every flexure tremble. How - how was this even possible, and with an *organic*?

“Think on what it’s like,” Mirage murmured, dentae nipping at Perceptor’s audial, “to cable with two at once.”

And with a sharp crackle, Perceptor overloaded.

He’d already pushed his capacitors beyond their limits for charge, hadn’t expected to overload so hard, so uncontrollably. Electricity crackled the length of his spasming fingers, surrounding the organic like a faraday cage, white-hot pops of lightning jolting between himself and Mirage, grounding down into the protometal beneath him. The human jerked and emitted more of its pale fluid. Everything -- awareness, worries, calculations and hypotheses -- was washed away for a single, vast, indeterminable span of time.

Slowly, Perceptor’s systems finished their reset, logged themselves back into his CPU. Mirage’s long, towerling fingers ghosted between plates of his armor -- foxfire and static electricity sparking wherever he touched. “Let the creature reset,” the towerling purred, “and you can do it again.”

Gradually, Perceptor unshuttered his optics. He had to reset the sensors several times -- both secondaries and a tertiary had booted back to factory specifications, their tolerances simply exceeded. Fortunately, most of Perceptor’s other hardware was sturdier, had to be, to survive laboratory accidents. Aside from a few blown circuits, a little melted soldering metal, and -- Primus, had he actually managed to crack a minor tensor? It appeared he had.

Oh, my. Goodness.

The human stirred a little, and Perceptor blinked down, fingers uncurling automatically. Pale fluid was splashed up the creature’s belly, and it rocked itself onto its back, gasping hard. Its surface covering still seemed to shimmer -- due to salt and water and some unidentified stripes of redness where Perceptor’s fingers had pressed, though, not electromagnetism. The creature seemed tender, flinching a little as it curled itself in Perceptor’s hands. It could not bend a great deal at the waist, Perceptor saw -- perhaps the length of his hardline, pushed up into its abdomen, restricted free motion?

The creature shifted a little, then lay back against Perceptor’s cupped fingers. The little motions served to remind the scientist of exactly how delightfully tight and hot -- increasingly hot -- the human was. The little beast’s internal temperature had climbed almost a full percent above normal, compared with absolute zero. The feel of that rippling tightness, the very thought of it, brightened the indicator lights running down Perceptor’s cable. The human made a groaning sound, the cable tangling between its legs, watching with resigned optics as the shifting pattern of lights began to increase in speed.

“That should be sufficient,” Mirage murmured in Perceptor’s audial, after a breem or two. “Try... this pulse, next.”

Perceptor did as he was bid.

The organic performed for him through two more shattering overloads, until the human’s central appendage jerked but emitted no fluid, until its responses to each pulse began to diminish. It largely ceased to move, and spent more time ventilating harshly, outer keratin coat damp with saltwater. Perceptor felt nearly as smelted -- thoroughly sated, digits finely trembling with overstimulation. At last, with a low, murmured laugh, Mirage unhooked his own hardline, and then reached over Perceptor’s plating, and removed the organic from the cradle of Perceptor’s fingers.

The little beast’s limbs hung limp, the fitfully-glowing hardline cable dangling loose between its legs. Perceptor stifled a groan as Mirage clasped the cable between two long fingers, close to the human’s port, and began easing it out. Despite its exhaustion, the organic jerked and kicked as Mirage teased the length from its body. The first small span seemed hardest, the organic crying out and clinging to Mirage’s hand, as though afraid of being pulled off. The ring of its little port seemed to pout, pink and wet with the waxy lubricant. A little more wriggling, and the base of the datajack slipped out, followed quickly by the rest of the long, thick span. The human gasped, choking a little on Cybertron’s atmosphere as it reached with trembling fingers to its own gaping port, the opening twitching around nothing and slow to close. The creature’s central appendage, Perceptor noted distantly, was flaccid now.

Mirage placed the limp human back in its cage. He drew another miniature cube from his subspace -- some kind of solid-packed substance, comprised of long chains of carbon, more than a dozen nitrogen-containing compounds, and a variety of elements in trace amounts -- and placed that too inside the cage. Then he reached for the other two organics.

Perceptor’s long digits still shook, and every joint of him felt deliciously loose, like his internal power exchanges had been uncoupled. “Mirage, I do believe...”

“Hush,” purred the towerling. “They’re trained for other varieties of enjoyment, as well. Just relax,” he said, as he placed the two organics beside the pile of microfiber mesh-like cloths and the cube of wax. Proving him correct, each of the little humans picked up a piece of the organic mesh, collected some of the wax, and then approached Perceptor. They were so lightweight, their strange little pedes didn’t even sink into the soft protometal of the berthtop. One of the beasts raised its square of mesh, and made more of those odd noises, bizarrely deep in tone, given that they came from such a small frame.

“I think it wants you to lay back,” said Mirage, elements of humor lacing his glyphs, as he returned to arrange himself against the scientist’s side, his exquisitely crafted frame flexible in ways that, even in his exhaustion, Perceptor found *fascinating.*

The scientist complied, a pair of optics tracking each of the organics. They were all quite different, he discovered, even though both of these bore the yellow-toned fur cap. The keratin-covered features were shaped a little differently in each, and one was longer in the arms, and taller. One bore paler, raised ridges across its body, like weld lines -- and the odd little digit at the juncture of its legs was shaped differently, the soft, sack-like node missing. However they were made, they clearly were not mass-produced. Had they hatched like this? Perceptor understood that particular means of organic reproduction could cause some variability in outcome. He’d have to download some datapackets, at least enough to increase his background knowle--

Perceptor’s threads went scattering like a dropped tray of transistors as the organics set themselves to work. Each organic selected a plate and scrubbed away every trace of accumulated dust; the squares of that odd mesh felt softer than a ventilation, than a ray of sunlight. Then they applied a coat of wax. Warmed by friction and the organics’ hands, the paste seeped down into even the finest crack in his topcoat, filling microfissures and soothing nanite colonies that Perceptor hadn’t even realized were stressed. The organics were efficient for creatures so small, first massaging a thin layer of wax into every piece of plating they could reach, then returning to buff and work the substance in until the armor shined like a towerling’s. They even waxed the sides of each plate, reaching around to attend to the back as well they could. Mirage’s fingers ghosted over each newly-waxed plate without a hint of friction.

In less than a joor, the organics finished with everything they could reach. They even attended to Perceptor’s hardline, scrubbing every trace of organic fluids and excess wax from the surface, then carefully lifting and bringing it close, so the scientist could spool it back in. They took extra care to remove all trace of the interesting white fluid from Perceptor’s hands, and the surface of the berth. The humans then climbed Perceptor’s chassis without apparent hesitation, the tiny fingers on their pedes finding a tickling grip on the edges of his plating. The organics lavished attention on the entirety of Perceptor’s front, from pedes to faceplates, accumulating a steadily-growing pile of soiled cloths. By the time Mirage urged the scientist over onto his underchassis, so that the organics might attend to his back, Perceptor was very nearly in recharge.

The organics finished in due course, and Mirage rose to put them back and flick the discarded tools into the incinerator. Every one of Perceptor’s external systems reported back as optimized -- he could not recall the last time he had seen so many components read green. Optics half-shuttered, Perceptor watched Mirage remove two more of the strange little cubes from subspace and dangle them between his fingers, watched the organics reach their spindly little arms up eagerly for the gift.

“Should I perhaps --” Perceptor started, and Mirage looked back, a crooked smile crossing his faceplates.

“Rest, recharge. Your laboratory does not expect you back for the orn, do they? Then we shall discuss terms later.” Mirage’s smirk broadened, as he removed his hand from the cage. “These, my dear researcher, can be counted among those terms... if you wish.”

As Mirage departed, Perceptor observed the three little organics, all of them huddled around the cubes in the cage, breaking off pieces... but not even curiosity could keep his optics open any longer.

\----

"Ugly looking son of a bitch," Trent commented between gulping bites of the tasteless nutritional cube. He tore off chunks of the stuff as he stood at the glass, staring down at the newcomer. The cage had a perfect view of the platform thing, and... everything that happened on it. Fuckin’ blue one prob’ly liked it that way, the fucker. "Almost like an insect, with those extra eyes and all those fingers. Fuckin’ look like spiders."

Sam just shrugged, focussed on getting down his own cube as quickly as possible. He'd been too spent to eat when he'd first been returned to the cage, had dozed until Miles and Trent returned. Now hunger was vying with exhaustion. What did it really matter what they looked like? Even the small ones were freakish, all points and sharp edges. At least this one’s... thing had been pretty normal. Though when all of this had become ‘normal’, Sam wasn’t sure.

"You looked like you were enjoying yourself plenty, Wickdickity," Trent added.

"Because fighting back is such a great plan." Miles jerked his chin pointedly at Trent's missing anatomy. Back when he and Sam’d been selected, more aggressive males were typically not 'chosen' for the program, but some of the aliens seemed to enjoy a fighter. If the human got too out of hand, as Trent had, steps were taken to pacify them. Just the memory of all that screaming... was enough to keep thoughts of escape to a minimum. Most days.

"Fuck off, you pathetic loser," Trent said, turning his back on the dormant red and gray alien, but it sounded almost like a rote answer, lacking the venom it once had. "At least I fought it. You and Wickdickity here just seem to enjoy it. You probably gave them the idea in the first place, going at it like you do."

"Do we really have to do this now?" Sam interjected, weary to the core, not even bothering to bring up that Trent was just as likely to take his comfort in them as they were in one another.

"Why not?" Trent replied, his tone dripping with sarcasm, spreading his arms broadly as if to encompass all they had -- four corners, seven paces between each, a water dispenser they both showered in and drank from, a grate in the corner to piss in. "What else is there to do?"

Sam shook his head. "I hurt like hell, and between the blue one pushing me down and that one picking me up, I've got bruises everywhere. I just want to eat and get some fucking sleep before it wakes up. You know how the newbies are."

"Was it good?" Trent asked, leering.

Sam put his face in his hands, the metal breathing thing rough against his palms, and Miles reached a careful arm around his bruised shoulder, glaring at Trent.

Of course it was good. It was always good -- the hours in the middle, anyway. They all got hard as soon as one of the mechanical monsters walked in the room. They hated it and needed it like a drug, and Trent was likely being a bastard because he hadn't gotten any, this time.

Far too long ago -- years? -- Sam and Miles had volunteered like good citizens, been ‘lucky’ enough to be chosen -- traded, Sam supposed, for technology a century beyond anything North America once had, even before the collapse. What choice had there really been? Starvation? Neither of them were strong enough to be selected for the mines or forests or quarries. At least this way they had been assured their families would have enough to live on.

Trent... said he hadn’t volunteered; wasn’t even quite sure how he’d gotten here. He hardly remembered the first part of training, before Sam and Miles had found him wandering in the exercise courtyard, before the... trip through space, or whatever. Trent thought he remembered running, thought the machines had hunted him, like he was sport. Miles thought Trent’d been hit on the head pretty hard. Everyone knew, after all, that wholesale abductions didn’t just happen in North America. You were supposed to be free in North America, free to choose, free from fear. Not like in other places.

Not that Sam knew anything -- not really -- about the other places, or how they had fared, or what the differences even actually were.

Sam wondered, sometimes, if the differences even mattered.

At least they had one another, now. The monster who’d picked them had seen the three of them huddling together in the corner of the cargo box, and that was it. Hard to believe someone he and Miles had despised in high school seemed almost like family, even if the former jock was still a complete dick. It was not an accident that the more dangerous robots -- the ones who seemed to get off on causing pain -- always ended up with Trent as their primary. Trent made sure of it, posturing aggressively in ways he knew would appeal, protecting Sam and Miles in his own way.

Sam couldn't hate Trent anymore. Not when they all took care of one another after particularly bad sessions, and held one another through the nightmares.

Which, actually, was a good point. He had a tradition to keep. Sam stood on still-shaky legs, tottered to the glass so he could look down at the latest mechanical monster. It was still the same one he remembered, the one he could still taste, the one that’d been so far up inside him he’d ache for days. Yeah, and it was still pretty fucking scary. But look, brain, way less scary when it’s asleep. Yep, really not scary at all. Definitely no need for bad dreams. Got it, brain?

Later though, when Sam was curled tight against both the others in the little nest they’d made of sheets of the rough metal fabric, the nightmares took him anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to HopeofDawn for beta reading and plotting assistance!


End file.
